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Research Article: Lessons learnt from the first wave of COVID-19 in Damascus, Syria: a multicentre retrospective cohort study

Date Published: 2023-07-20

Abstract:
Objectives The decade-long Syrian war led to fragile health infrastructures lacking in personal and physical resources. The public health of the Syrian population was, therefore, vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated even well-resourced healthcare systems. Nevertheless, the officially reported incidence and fatality rates were significantly lower than the forecasted numbers. Design A retrospective cohort study. Setting The four main responding hospitals in Damascus, which received most of the cases during the first pandemic wave in Syria (i.e., June–August 2020). Participants One thousand one hundred eighty-four patients who were managed as inpatient COVID-19 cases. Primary and secondary outcome measures The records of hospitalised patients were screened for clinical history, vital signs, diagnosis modality, major interventions and status at discharge. Results The diagnostic and therapeutic preparedness for COVID-19 was significantly heterogeneous among the different centres and depleted rapidly after the arrival of the first wave. Only 32% of the patients were diagnosed based on positive reverse transcription-PCR tests. Five hundred twenty-six patients had an indication for intensive care unit admission, but only 82% of them received it. Two hundred fifty-seven patients needed mechanical ventilation, but ventilators were not available to 14% of them, all of whom died. Overall mortality during hospitalisation reached 46% and no significant difference was found in fatality between those who received and did not receive these care options. Conclusions The Syrian healthcare system expressed minor resilience in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, as its assets vanished swiftly with a limited number of cases. This forced physicians to reserve resources (e.g., ventilators) for the most severe cases, which led to poor outcomes of in-hospital management and limited the admission capacity for milder cases. The overwhelmed system additionally suffered from constrained coordination, suboptimal allocation of the accessible resources and a severe inability to informatively report on the catastrophic pandemic course in Syria.

Introduction:
In March 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic after the high morbidity and mortality it caused worldwide. 1 The pandemic exposed the global weakness in healthcare systems regarding medical supplies, human resources and overall preparedness. 2 This fragility was even greater in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region due to the widespread conflicts and political instability. 3 4 Particularly, the decade-long Syrian armed conflict led to frail health infrastructures, as about half of the…

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